Dive Brief:
- The Obama administration incorrectly added about 380,000 dental subscribers to its Affordable Care Act enrollment calculation, raising the total subscribers to over 7 million, Bloomberg News reported.
- The Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that, without the error, the number of people enrolled in the ACA with full plans was about 6.7 million as of Oct. 15.
- Investigators for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found the error while calculating enrollment.
Dive Insight:
That 7 million figure is important. It was the enrollment estimate the Congressional Budget Office made in 2013 and it regularly was cited as a target by the Obama administration. Officials said in September that 7.3 million people had enrolled in ACA through insurance exchanges.
Republicans wasted little time in criticizing the error. "Administration double counts #Obamacare enrollees to reach enrollment goal," incoming House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California tweeted.